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California Air Resources Board News Clips for November 12, 2010.

 

This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office
of Communications.  You may need to sign in or register with
individual websites to view some of the following news articles.

AIR POLLUTION

For Asian Games, Chinese Host City Using 'Iron Fist' to Clean the
Air. In recent weeks Guangzhou stopped construction and banned
cars. But whether it's improved air quality is unclear.
Guangzhou, China—On the eve of the opening of the Asian Games,
the world's second largest sports event, host city Guangzhou is
looking greener—at least cosmetically.  In a last-ditch push to
reduce air pollution in this smog-choked industrial powerhouse,
capital of China's Guandong Province, a few weeks ago government
officials issued a raft of measures, big and small, intended to
minimize pollutants. Posted.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS384489247920101112

CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate Change Shocks Scientists. Although evidence of climate
change in plants is not showing up where scientists had expected
to find it, it’s there nonetheless, they say. The experts had
expected to find that evidence in high-elevation flora. Instead
they’re finding the earliest reactions to a drier, warmer climate
in plants growing between 1,500 and 4,000 feet in the Siskiyou
Mountains, said Susan Harrison, an ecology professor at the
University of California-Davis. Posted.
http://www.redding.com/news/2010/nov/11/climate-change-shocks-scientists/?print=1

FUELS

Pacific Ethanol Partners With Advanced Fuels Keyes. Kinergy
Marketing LLC, a marketing subsidiary of Pacific Ethanol Inc. has
entered into an agreement with Advanced Fuels Keyes Inc. to sell
ethanol produced by a 55-million-gallon-a-year ethanol production
facility in Keyes. The Keyes Company, known as AE Keyes, is
retrofitting the facility and expects it to be operational by
first-quarter 2011. AE Keyes is affiliated with AE Biofuels Inc.
According to the company website, AE Biofuels was founded in
November 2005 “as a global developer of large scale
next-generation biofuels plants.” Posted.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2010/11/11/pacific-ethanol-partners-with-advanced.html

EPA To Collect Natural Gas Emissions Data. This week, the
Environmental Protection Agency released guidelines for oil and
natural gas companies to measure and report the greenhouse gas
emissions produced by their operations annually. The final rule
says that oil and natural gas facilities that emit 25,000 metric
tons of carbon dioxide equivalent or more per year must track
that information starting in January and report it to the EPA
annually, beginning March 2012. Posted.
http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/blog/energy/2010/11/epa-to-collect-natural-gas-emissions.html

GREEN ENERGY

Sunpower Reports $20 Million Profit. San Jose-based SunPower,
Silicon Valley's biggest solar panel manufacturer, on Thursday
reported a third quarter profit of $20.1 million. Analysts
praised the performance, saying the company appears to be on
track to finish the year with more than $2 billion in revenue.
Shares were up slightly to $14.25 in after-hours trading.
SunPower designs and manufactures solar panels for residential,
commercial and utility customers in the United States and abroad,
where Italy is its dominant market. Posted.
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_16589153?source=rss&nclick_check=1

VEHICLES

General Electric Says It Will Buy 25,000 Electric Vehicles By
2015. The conglomerate, which its CEO noted makes technology that
'touches every point of the electric-vehicle infrastructure,'
said its strategy represented the largest-ever electric-vehicle
commitment by a company or organization. General Electric Co.,
saying it wants to help spark the electric vehicle industry, said
Thursday that it would purchase 25,000 electric vehicles for its
fleet by 2015. The Fairfield, Conn., company said its strategy
represented the largest-ever electric-vehicle commitment by a
company or organization. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-autos-ge-electric-cars-20101112,0,4146098,print.story

GE's Pick Of Chevy Volt For Electric Vehicle Fleet Revs Up EV
Market. General Electric Co. has settled on General Motors Co.'s
Chevy Volt for its first big purchase of electric vehicles,
boosting GE's investment in battery technology and reinforcing
Wall Street expectations that GM is about to go public. The
corporate heavyweights joined forces yesterday to start prying
open an electric vehicle market that has long eluded U.S.
carmakers. The GE fleet of electric vehicles (EVs), a slow-moving
Trojan horse inside the auto industry, could set the stage for
the conversion of other corporate fleets, including that of
FedEx. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/11/12/4

Analyst's Approval Lifts Tesla Stock To Highest Point Since IPO.
Boosted by a positive report from a JPMorgan Chase analyst,
electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors rose 19 percent in Nasdaq
trading. The automaker, which is backed by Toyota and Daimler,
rose to $29.36, the highest closing price since the company began
trading on June 29. Tesla has gone up 73 percent since its June
initial public offering. "We are bullish on TSLA as we believe it
is at the vanguard of improving battery costs/durability," wrote
JPMorgan analyst Himanshu Patel. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/11/12/8

OPINION

Our View: Air Board's Arrogance Damaging. California seems intent
on traveling a road to self-destruction paved with government
mandates and regulations that drive businesses and jobs out of
state while discouraging new job creation. A prime job-killing,
business-punishing scheme is the insistence on achieving radical
environmental goals, despite their real-world economic
liabilities. The California Air Resources Board has adopted a
mandate that utility companies produce 33 percent of their
electricity from so-called renewable resources by 2020. Posted.
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/common/printer/view.php?db=marysville&id=101071

Unintended Consequences: Encouraging Smoking. To the Editor: Re
“Scans Cut Deaths of Lung Cancer Among Smokers” (front page, Nov.
5): I am very much afraid that CT screenings would have the
unintended consequence of actually encouraging smoking behavior
if the screening test is negative. 
A heavy smoker, concerned that his habit may lead to lung cancer,
gets a CT scan, which is negative. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/opinion/lweb12smoking.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

Byron Williams: My Question To California Voters: What Were You
Thinking? FORGIVE MY (self) righteous indignation, but there is a
portion of the California electorate that I must ask a serious
question. I'm specifically referring to that unique group who
voted no on Proposition 23, yes on Proposition 25 and yes on
Proposition 26. My question is what were you thinking? Posted.
http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/ci_16575475

Diesel Duty. California will never clean up its dirty air without
cracking down on pollution from diesel engines, as the federal
government made clear this week. The state can adjust air
improvement plans to account for the economic downturn. But state
regulators still need to curb emissions from diesel-powered
trucks, buses and construction equipment -- and soon. Posted.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/editorials/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_D_op_12_ed_carbdiesel.37fbf79.html

Instead Of Fining Us Over Air, Try These Solutions. The fact that
the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution control District board
elected to add $12 to our yearly auto registration fee without
requiring the same for commercial vehicles illustrates they don’t
have the guts to enact pertinent restrictions (as they did with
wood-burning fireplaces) to reduce pollution. Here are three ways
to reduce automotive pollution during critical summer days. Each
may require legislative action at the federal and state levels
and lots of political guts. Posted.
http://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/letters/x1801938160/Instead-of-fining-us-over-air-try-these-solutions

The Job Killer. In another depressing sign of California’s
steadily deteriorating economy, and specifically that of the
Victor Valley, Lowe’s in Apple Valley shut its doors over the
weekend, adding 81 more people to the jobless rolls. Sadly, we
suspect you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Remember, AB32 comes online
soon because state voters massively rejected Prop 23 on the Nov.
2 ballot. Of Californians who voted, 61 percent said suspending
AB32 dictates regarding the climate was a bad idea. Posted.
http://www.vvdailypress.com/common/printer/view.php?db=vvdailypress&id=22929

BLOGS

‘Cool’ Climate Film Takes On ‘Truth’. An earnest non-scientist
probing the relationship of people, climate and energy travels
the globe describing his menu for avoiding dangerous global
warming. Cameras follow every move. The articulate, energetic
man, aided by a skilled filmmaker using evocative imagery,
distills a momentous but complicated issue to digestible sound
bites, jabs at his ideological and intellectual antagonists and
delivers an illustrated lecture to a rapt audience. Posted.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/cool-climate-film-takes-on-truth/?pagemode=print
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/11/10/controversial-cool-it-documentary-takes-on-an-inconvenient-truth/

Electric, Diesel Or Hybrid Car? Cost And CO2 Calculator Helps
Consumers Choose. As the Environmental Protection Agency
struggles with how to accurately label passenger vehicles for
fuel economy and greenhouse-gas emissions, a new online cost and
CO2 emissions calculator launched today to help fill the void.
"Electrics, hybrids, plug-ins, all these alternative powertrain
cars are a hot topic these days, but there's not a good way to
look at the bottom line of what it costs to own one of these,"
said Jon Lal, founder of BeFrugal.com, a frugal-living website
that offers tools to help consumers save money, including its new
calculator. Posted.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/11/alternative-car-cost-and-co2-calculator.html

California: The Green Guinea Pig. California has a chance to show
the world how to balance greenhouse gas reduction with economic
prosperity – if they can get it to work. Now that the Republicans
control the House of Representatives and Prop 23 has died, the
California Air Resources Board (ARB) takes center stage with its
rollout of AB32. Without being overly dramatic, California now
stands as the world’s best laboratory for figuring out how to
balance greenhouse gas reduction policies while encouraging
economic prosperity for all. Posted.
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/342837